Man-ish Man-ish

The third and final installment of Boys Don’t Cry. Tom Lutz wrote the book on crying. I say the book because if you’ve read any modern studies of tears, you inevitably come across a reference to his book. And as we near the end of our crying series, we’re going to hear from Tom Lutz himself, speaking about his personal history with tears.

In recent years, we’ve seen politicians cry, many of them men. It makes you wonder: is the Muskie Rule, that there’s no crying in politics, finally dead? In Part II of Boys Don’t Cry, a series Man-ish is doing on men and crying, we find out how much things have changed. If Muskie got into a time machine and traveled to present day, what would happen?

Today’s show is the first installment in a series on men and crying. We will revisit the incident that lead to the Muskie Rule, which is an unwritten maxim in politics that candidates who cry in front of the press will end up like Edmund Muskie, whose 1972 presidential bid imploded when he choked up in public.

Oral history recordings were graciously provided by The Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library. Special thanks to John Milne, Jim Witherell, Emily Palena, Brandon Pascal, and Shoshana Walter.

Correction: An earlier version misstated that Edmond Muskie was the first democratic Governor of Maine since WWI. Although it was unusual for a democrat to win the governorship, there was in fact a democrat elected to the governor's office in 1933. The episode has been updated to reflect this.

Update: No, you're not going crazy. Man-ish (formerly Mannish) got a hyphen. It better captures what the show is about (the social construction of masculinity).

If I say body image, what do you think of? Stomach fat? Thigh gap? Laser hair removal? You probably think of women. And for good reason. Because women get a lot of pressure to look a certain way. But this happens to men, too. And that’s worth talking about. In this episode, we’ll home in on one aspect of men’s body image: hair loss. First, we’ll take a look inside the thriving hair loss prevention industry and then we’ll explore the underlying motivations that drive men to take drastic measures and how the world of psychotherapy might approach this differently.

This episode is a collaboration with the wonderful podcast A Therapist Walks Into A Bar.

Credits:

Produced By:
Lily Sloane & Jesse Rhodes
​
Music:
Maruumba, Man of Mystery, The Pieces Fit, Mayday in the Morning by Topher M. Lewis
Lavender White by People Like Us and Old Fashioned Auto Piano obtained via creative commons at FreeSound.org

Additional Music & Sound Design by:
Lily Sloane

Other Media:
WTF am I going bald???!!!!

Special thanks to the strangers at the bar for sharing your stories, Lucky 13 for letting us fraternize with microphones on your patio, and Shoshana Walter for your feedback.

Update: No, you're not going crazy. Man-ish (formerly Mannish) got a hyphen. It better captures what the show is about (the social construction of masculinity).

Internet porn. We’ve all seen it. It’s popular and loved. And yet, for fairly obvious reasons, it’s also reviled for its misogyny, as something that perpetuates cycles of violence against women. In this episode, we wade into the murky waters of sexual fantasy. In part one, we hear from a sociologist who went into men's homes and watched their porn. In part two, we try a different approach - we hear from porn users themselves. In this electronic opera, porn users interact with pundits and music in an amalgam of sounds composed to form a larger conversation about porn.

Credits:
Special thanks to Alex Klein, Florian Voros, and Derek Wilson for speaking with me on tape. To read the full letters from Susannah Breslin’s project, "Letters from Men who Watch Pornography," go to:
http://lettersfromwatchers.blogspot.com/

Also, thank you to all the readers who volunteered their voices: Brandon Pascal, Cliff Casablancas, Ken Look, Christopher Rhodes, Rachel Rhodes, Gregory Palena, Anthony Corey Chan, Ryan Hardiman, Nick Koch, Tony Ta, Shoshana Walter, Alan Walter, Nihal Oztek, and Simon Lam.

Music licensed under Creative Commons:
Minden - On Assignment http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Minden/Instrumentals_1967/On_Assignment_Instrumental
Josh Spacek - Gotta Keep Moving http://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Losers/Start_Over/Gotta_Keep_Moving
Super Sigil - Bohemia Groove http://ccmixter.org/files/Super_Sigil/41167
Chris Zabriskie - Readers! Do you Read? http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/Reappear/02_-_Readers_Do_You_Read
Podington Bear - Lleb http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Marimba_Vibraphone_Chimes__Bells/Lleb
Kevin MacLeod - Club Driver https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhsrR_uvJ7M
Kevin MacLeod - Cut and Run https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1mVzSlddPo
Kevin MacLeod - Lightless Dawn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E5uY08HThc
Morgantj - Granular Erotic 1 http://ccmixter.org/files/morgantj/21123
Morgantj - Granular Erotic 2 http://ccmixter.org/files/morgantj/21125
Williamberry - Beepish 1 http://ccmixter.org/files/williamberry/5987
Williamberry - Beepish 2 http://ccmixter.org/files/williamberry/5988
Williamberry - Time to Take out the Trash http://ccmixter.org/files/williamberry/6855
Nelas - Backnoise http://ccmixter.org/files/NeLaS/8026
Kentbye - Group Om http://ccmixter.org/files/kentbye/8981
PorchCat - Nym Junglist Drums http://ccmixter.org/files/PorchCat/5252
Tonux_gix - Turbulence http://ccmixter.org/files/tonux_gix/48835
Arcadian Burn - Killa Beat no link
Fourstones - Hip Hop Etude http://ccmixter.org/files/victor/8453
Djolliej - Don’t Run on Drugs http://ccmixter.org/files/djolliej/33710
Scottaltham - Slap a Lard Ass http://ccmixter.org/files/scottaltham/19319
My Free Mickey - First Place http://ccmixter.org/files/myfreemickey/44325
Stellarartwars - Love Liberation http://ccmixter.org/files/stellarartwars/43500
Soundeffectsfactory - FM Radio Tuning #1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzBq5faeoKY

Update: No, you're not going crazy. Man-ish (formerly Mannish) got a hyphen. It better captures what the show is about (the social construction of masculinity).

Growing up, my family played a lot of music. We also performed... mostly funerals. The driving force behind it all? My dad. So, in order to better understand my dad, I revisited the audio cassettes of those funerals and the deaths that prompted them.

Music Credit:
"Upbeat" by Jon Luc Hefferman is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jon_Luc_Hefferman/Production_Music_1841/Upbeat
Based on a work at http://needledrop.co

All other songs were by the family funeral band and were recorded by my dad, Ted Rhodes.

Update: No, you're not going crazy. Man-ish (formerly Mannish) got a hyphen. It better captures what the show is about (the social construction of masculinity).